If you were in any doubt, the job market sucks. Hard. Imagine waking up and not feeling so wonderful about yourself, as many ABD (and other grad students, and probably new faculty, and older faculty, and all people) tend to do now and again. You didn’t get enough work done this past weekend. Your not physically feeling the best. You are waiting to hear about a paper that you were told should have a decision any day now (over a week ago), and are now sure that you are being rejected because it seems that everything in your life is a fail. So you go and teach your class. And it goes okay, but not great, because you are in a negative place and can’t seem to get the energy up to normal level. And then, you go back to your departmental mailbox and discover two rejection letters from a University. Talk about kicking you when you are down.
The job market is psychological warfare. It is cruel. It’s enough to make you seriously consider another line of work.
But then you realize that you are qualified to do absolutely nothing else. And, even what you are qualified to do (data analysis, consulting, something like that) has been made into some special kind of hell because you would have to answer to someone else and do what they are asking you to do rather than your own work.
You see why I stopped blogging? I’ll be over it tomorrow, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, something actually worth reading can be found here.
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I understand what you mean – many of us are going through the same situation all over the world. Evil rich bastards have screwed everything up and everyone else has to pay the price. It may seem like you are not qualified to do anything else, but in reality the training that you’ve been through, even the most disillusioning parts, will undoubtedly play a key role in your future career. Hang in there and best wishes!
Comment by Lim Leng Hiong January 27, 2009 @ 1:43 amSucky. Supersucky, in fact. Sorry to hear it.
Comment by tina January 27, 2009 @ 6:58 amI second Tina. Sorry to hear about the sucky. And afraid. I hear next year’s not projected to be much better. Even if the economy’s turned around, we’ll still basically have two year’s worth of graduates fighting for one year’s worth of jobs. Bah.
Comment by Anomie January 27, 2009 @ 9:07 amLuckily, the both of you are so completely wonderful that you will undoubtedly each get one of those coveted jobs!
Comment by kristina b January 27, 2009 @ 6:52 pmThanks all. But, it’s a momentary down that I have every other day or so. Multiplied by the fact that it seems that I have the flu.
And AUG! I’m gonna have to compete with Anomie. That’s no good
Comment by pitse1eh January 28, 2009 @ 11:08 amSorry to hear this, hope you’ll be feeling up again soon.
You’re right about the psychological cruelty of the job market. At last year’s ASA, I shared a airport shuttle with a few junior colleagues. One was lamenting the possibility of going back on the market, and I remarked how the difficulty of it seemed so fresh in my mind despite my being in the second year on the job. Another sociologist, who I didn’t know, overheard and remarked that he was a couple years post-tenure and still felt that way. That’s a long-winded way to say you’re not alone.
Hang in there…
Comment by Dave P. January 29, 2009 @ 10:16 am